JeremiahCry Ministries :

Do We Have To Mention Jesus In Every Sermon ? :

This excellent point from John Koessler's Blog A Stranger In The House Of God. :

Today a student asked me whether I thought it was necessary to mention Jesus in every sermon. Why would a Bible college student even ask such a question? Actually, there are several good reasons. One has to do with the nature of the Bible itself. Students are rightly taught to respect the human author’s intent in hermeneutics. If Jesus is not explicit in the text, it can be dangerous to read Him into to it. When it comes to some passages, it seems hard to make connections to the gospel without engaging in interpretive gymnastics. What doesthe Proverbs 31 woman have to do with Jesus anyway?

Yet Jesus makes it clear that He is at the heart of the Bible. According to John 5:39, Jesus told the religious leaders of His day: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me….” Jesus is not the express focus of every text of Scripture. But all Scripture gives evidence to the truth that is ultimately expressed in the person and work of Christ.

Jesus is the end toward which all Scripture truth tends. When it comes to God’s revelation about Himself, Jesus is the “last word” (Heb. 1:2). This means that the conscious intent of the human author is not sufficient for understanding the true intent of the text. This side of the cross, we have an insight that the Bible’s human authors lacked. When we examine Scripture, we do not look to find Christ in the text. We look at the text through the lens of Christ. Is it necessary to mention Jesus in every sermon? Yes. If Jesus doesn’t show up in the sermon, then it isn’t preaching. Not really.

Contradictions In The Bible 13 :

Could Jesus have yielded to temptation to sin?

Hebrews 2:17-18 reads concerning Jesus: "For this reason he had to be made like his 
brothers in every way [kata panta], in order that he might become a merciful and faithful 
high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the 
people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who 
are being tempted" (NIV). This passage indicates that Jesus really came under temptation 
in the way that any child of Adam is confronted with temptation, for "he was made like 
his brothers in every way." He would not have been made like His fellow men if He had 
not been made capable of yielding to the temptation--any more than a hippopotamus can 
be said to be tempted to fly through the air. 

Apart from ability to yield to the temptation to sin, there is no temptation at all. There 
has to be a deliberate decision to reject what has attractiveness and appeal of some sort to 
the person attacked by temptation. When man is tempted, he must be confronted by 
something that requires him to choose between compliance or refusal. Therefore we must 
conclude that unless Hebrews 2:18 is in error, Jesus Christ had the ability to give in to the 
temptations that Satan directed against Him. Otherwise He would not have been tempted 
"like his brothers in every way." 

A little further on we read in Hebrews 4:15: "For we do not have a high priest who is 
unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in 
every way, just as we are--yet was without sin" (NIV). The last phrase inserts "was" in 
order to clarify the obvious intention of the Greek phrase choris hamartias ("without 
sin"). KJV omits the "was" and renders the phrase "yet without sin." But even if the 
"was" is omitted, the basic meaning remains the same; it is no sin to be tempted, but it is sin if we yield to temptation. The consideration added by this last verse is the element of sympathy," i.e., the ability to understand the feelings of the one tempted and feel 
compassion toward him during his crisis. If Christ had been utterly incapable of sin, even 
as the Son of Man, then it is hard to see how He could have felt sympathy for sinners. 

On the other hand, there is another sense in which we may say that Christ was incapable 
of sin, and that is in the psychological sense. When the patriot says, "I could never betray 
my country to its foes," or "I could never be unfaithful to my dear wife," he is speaking 
not of a physical inability but of a psychological inability. He has no personal desire to 
commit the evil he is being solicited to do; in fact, he finds it repellant and distasteful, not 
so much the act in itself, but the evil consequences that would ensure from that act. 
Because Jesus was completely in love with His heavenly Father, He could never have brought Himself to grieve Him or go counter to His know will.

Gleason L Archer

Elisabeth Elliot On Submission :

 "Supreme authority in both Church and home has been divinely vested in the male as 
the representative of Christ, who is the Head of the Church. It is in willing and glad 
submission rather than grudging capitulation that the woman in the Church (whether 
married or single) and the wife in the home find their fulfillment" ("Why I Oppose the 
Ordination of Women," Christianity Today 880 [1975]:14).

And ...

"The modern cult of personality makes submission a degrading thing. We are told we
cannot be `whole persons' if we submit. Obedience is thought of as restrictive and 
therefore bad. ` Freedom' is defined as the absence of restraint, quite the opposite from 
the scriptural principle embodied in Jesus' words, `If you continue in my words, then are 
ye my disciples, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' Freedom 
in God's view always lies on the far side of discipline, which means obedience.... To 
attempt to apply democratic ideals to the kingdom of God, which is clearly hierarchical,
can result only in a loss of power and ultimately in destruction. Christ Himself, the 
Servant and Son, accepted limitation and restriction. He subjected Himself. He learned 
obedience" (ibid., p.13).


~Elisabeth Elliot, wife of Jim Elliot- Missionary and Martyr.

Feed On The Word :

How instructive to us is this great Truth of God that the Incarnate Word lived on the Inspired Word! It was food to Him, as it is to us and, Brothers and Sisters, if Christ thus lived upon the Word of God, should not you and I do the same? He, in some respects, did not need this Book as much as we do. The Spirit of God rested upon Him without meas- ure, yet He loved the Scripture and He went to it, studied it and used its expressions continually.

~Charles Spurgeon

H.T.  The Old Guys